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A Star of Hope for Mexico 



BY 

CHARLES WILLIAM DABNEY 
Prcsidcnl of the University of Cincinnati 



h/6 



Rcprinied From 

The Outlook. March 22. 19I6 

■id 

Commerce and Finance. March 29. 1916 



A STAR OF HOPE FOR MEXICO 

By Charles William Dabney, President of the University of Cincinnati, in The Outlook 



Wlint can we do for Mexico? In the first place, 
we can try to understand her. We cannot expect to 
help Mexico effectually until we first understand her 
people and their history, institutions, and aspirations. 
What, then, does the history of Mexico teach us? 
What, for example, is the meaning of the series of 
revolutions which have been going on in that country 
for the last hundred years? 

These revolutions, including this last long one, liave 
all, at bottom, been phases of a blind, misguided 
struggle of a strong, ignorant people for liberty. 
They sprang from a desire of the common people to 
realize the benefits of democracy, whose catchwords 
had reached even to them, but whose terms they only 
vaguely understood. They constitute a contest against 
a feudal system approaching slavery. They were 
chiefly, although not entirely, the strivings of an op- 
pressed people to win for themselves and their children 
a small place upon the soil of their native land. 

These blind eft'orts have failed of their ends largely 
because of the ignorance of the people and the lack of 
true and unselfish leaders. There has never been a 
middle class in Mexico to supply leaders for the 
people in their struggles with the feudal lords. Or- 
ganized public opinion is the only basis for democratic 
government, and this has never existed in Mexico. 
The only newspapers are controlled by the Govern- 
ment, by the landlords, or by the big corporations. 
There are no real political parties. The only politics 
I are wholly personal, and the only political organiza- 
tions are gangs formed to advance the interests of 
leaders whose names they bear. There are no political 
campaigns to educate the voters, but only processions 
and rallies intended to impress them. There is, in fact, 
no free political discussion of any kind. Elections in 
Mexico, consequently, are either farces or frauds. 

Organized public opinion and the free discussion 
of political affairs so necessary to free government 
cannot exist where the masses of the people are ig- 
norant. The only solution of the Mexican problem, 
therefore, will be through the establishment of public 
schools which will educate the people to know their 
rights, and train men to lead them in their struggles to 
win these rights. 

Most people think that the largest part of the 
Mexican population is a mixed race of Spanish and 
Indian blood. The Mexican census is inaccurate and 
incomplete. As Mexicans of any intelligence desire 
to be considered as having European blood, the re- 
turns with regard to parentage or race cannot be relied 
upon. The best authorities tell us that the mestizos, or 
people of Spanish-Indian blood, are not over forty per 
cent., and that the people of pure European blood are 
certainly not twenty per cent, of the whole. The peo- 
ple of j)urc and mixed European blood together con- 
stitute thus only about sixty j^er cent., or si.x million, of 
the fifteen million souls in ^lexico to-day. The nine 
million liulians, more or less, constitute some fifty 
aboriginal tribes in various stages of semi-civilization 
— and some still in savagery — distributed all over the 
country from Sonora to Yucatan. This vast area of 
Mexican territory contains only about twenty persons 



to the square mile. Were it populated as densely as 
portions of the United States, Mexico would support a 
hundred million people. Vast arid regions render this 
impossible, but it could readily support four times its 
present population. 

The Spanish invaders and their later followers 
brought a marvelous mixture of blood into Mexico. 
Spain was the great melting-pot of the Old World's 
peoples — Iberian, Roman, Celtic, Vandal, Goth, and 
Semitic — and sent all these strains to mix with the 
hundreds of Indian races supposed to have come orig- 
inally from Asia. If the blending of a variety of 
strong bloods makes a great people, Mexico should 
be a powerful nation. 

The Mexican people have always been sharply di- 
vided into an upper and a lower class, there being 
practically no middle class, and no room for one under 
the present agrarian system. The peons and Indians 
— people without land of their own — make up perhaps 
eighty per cent, of the population of Mexico, or twelve 
millions out of the fifteen. 

In judging this people we must also take into con- 
sideration the experiences through which they have 
passed in the centuries since the Spanish conquest. 
After the army of Cortez had swept the countrj' and 
divided the land and the surviving Indians among his 
followers, they and their successors, the Government 
and the Church, combined to suck all the life-blood 
they could out of the people. Aside from ineft'ective 
protest, the Church acquiesced in this exploitation or 
openly shared its proceeds, although it did soften its 
worst horrors. The material resources of the country 
were partially developed. Cities and haciendas were 
established and mines opened, but the wealtli from 
both farm and mine was poured into Spain. 

Under Spanish dominion the education of the peo- 
ple of Mexico was resisted and retarded by many 
powerful influences. The landlords, the mining and 
lumber companies, preferred ignorant laborers because 
they were easier to exploit. The peon was a mere 
unit of physical force, a "hand," and they wanted to 
keep him such. All employers, therefore, united to 
keep him in ignorance. Monastic and other religious 
organizations flourishd, but they did little to educate 
the people. The theologians even questioned whether 
the natives had intellects like other people, and tlie 
whites and mixed-bloods came to be spoken of as gente 
dc razon — people with reason — as distinguished from 
the Indians, who were sup])osed to have none. By 
farming out taxation and selling grants and privileges 
the viceroys, governors, and other Spanish officials 
added their burdens to those of the State and Church, 
and the unfortunate people bore them all. 

The social organization, consisting only of the ex- 
ploiters and the exploited, though somewhat fluid at 
first, under this .government soon hardened into tradi- 
tion. Life for the poor man was without incentive or 
hope, and for three centuries the history of the Mexi- 
can was the dead level of uneventfulness. Under such 
conditions ten generations labored and passed away. 
Such experiences inevitably made a deep and lasting 
impression upon the character of the people. They 



not only widened the social chasm, they weakened and 
debased the man, making submissiveness a habit and 
resistance impossible. With no motive in life except 
to eat, drink, and propagate his miserable kind, the 
common Mexican became idle, sensual, and brutal, the 
spirit of manana ruled his life, and a profound fatal- 
<2^J ism locked his spirit in death. 
^ Under the system of rcpartiimentos the lands were 
originally divided among tliose who merited well of 
the Crown, and the native people were seized along 
with the land and made to work for the new owner as 
slaves. This system was so grossly abused that it had 
to be abandoned, and then a more polite way of accom- 
plishing the same thing was introduced. This was the 
plan of encoiiiicndas, under which a certain number of 
Indians were "commended" to the landowner, to be 
civilized and Christianized by him. He promptly en- 
slaved the whole lot, binding them to his land, which 
they could not leave so long as they were in debt. 
This system had for the proprietor all the advantages 
of slavery as it existed in the United States, without 
its obligations. 

Many efforts were made to abolish this system, but 
without success. The missionaries from the old coun- 
try denounced it, some of the viceroys condemned it; 
but it was profitable to all governing classes, and it 
kept the Indians in order. Working was good for the 
souls of the peons. Left to themselves, they would 
wander about the country, gamble and fight. So even 
the priests were brought to think well of the plan. 
The land yielded a living easily. In that fine climate 
the simplest houses and fewest clothes sufficed. Why 
should the priests trouble themselves to educate the 
Indian? He was happy as he was. After a genera- 
tion or two of monks had passed away the local 
churches came under the control of a native priest- 
hood almost as ignorant as their parishioners. The 
ceremonies of the Church degenerated into the crudest 
formalities wrapped in the crassest superstitions de- 
rived from previous Indian practices. There were a 
few private schools for the sons of the rich, a few 
institutes for professional training, and a few semi- 
naries for priests, but no public schools, no school- 
houses, no teachers, and no funds provided to educate 
the masses. Occasionally there was a parochial school 
. in which the catechism and the lives of the saints were 
taught by rote, but these schools rarely ever taught 
the children to read. Under these conditions the 
people drifted gently down the stream of years in 
contented ignorance. 

As is always the way, the social distinctions between 
chiefs and common Indians, between Spanish land- 
lords and peasant mestizos, settled down upon the 
criterion of wealth. Most of the Indian caciques 
dropped into the lower class, as did the unsuccessful 
Spanish. The descendants of the hidalgo, as well as 
of his soldiers, failing to acquire lands or mines, slid 
down the social scale along with their half-blood kin 
into the great conglomerate mass of poor at the bot- 
tom. The constituents of this mass became each year 
more and more indistinguishable. By the time of the 
national emancipation, therefore, a population of five 
or six millions had been stratified into an upper and a 
lower class, and of the total at least nine-tenths be- 
longed to the lower class. All elements are repre- 
sented in the upper class ; all bloods are found in the 
lower class. The Mexican people are practically one. 



The classes differ only as they have enjoyed oppor- 
tunity and have used it. The only differences are in 
possessions or in traits resulting from opportunity or 
the long want of it. 

In studying the last one hundred years of Mexico's 
political development one must keep this dark back- 
ground in mind. These conditions, as well as the 
nature of the people and the institutions fastened upon 
them by their conquerors ,must all be considered in 
interpreting the period of liberation which opened for 
Mexico, as for all Latin America, in the early years of 
the ninetenth century. In all our judgments of Latin- 
American people, present as well as past, let us be 
fair and remember who they were and what they have 
suffered. Anglo-Saxons are inclined to be too con- 
ceited and arrogant. We should remember, for ex- 
ample, that the Latin conquerors preserved as slaves 
the native races, instead of killing them off or driving 
them out, and we should also remember that it was not 
the makers of Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights, 
but the founders of the Inquisition, who gave the Lat- 
in-Americans their first governments. 

The desire for enlightenment everywhere and always 
follows the struggle for liberty. So we find that the 
intellectual movement in Mexico received its first great 
impulse from Hidalgo in 1810, and progressed through- 
out the century by ebb and flow as the political revolu- 
tions came and went. Though each political uprising 
awakened the minds of the people, the actual progress 
of enlightenment under the conditions described was 
necessarily very low. After experiences such as the 
people of Mexico had endured it was not possible for 
mere political liberation to transform them in a day or 
a decade into intelligent, self-governing citizens. Many 
of them were still semi-civilized Indians, and nine- 
tenths were absolutely ignorant at the opening of this 
era. What had been three centuries in the making 
could not be undone in one hundred years. 

The general movement for freedom in Latin Amer- 
ica was awakened by the successful war for inde- 
pendence of the English colonies in America and tre- 
mendously stimulated by the French Revolution. The 
times were then ripe in Europe, and the prepared peo- 
ples seized the opportunity to win new liberties. But 
the people of Latin America were not ready ; the op- 
pression of centuries had trained them so long to sub- 
mission that they were dazed in the presence of the 
opportunity. When Napoleon paralyzed Europe, the 
shackles fell from Mexico almost without her knowing 
it. Thus Mexico got her independence too soon and 
too easily. The clock of destiny struck too early for 
her. 

For years the people of Mexico had been restless ; 
they wanted something better, but they did not under- 
stand this thing called independence, with which the 
world was ringing. Mexico in the nineteenth century 
resembled one of her ancient volcanoes. The fierce 
heat lay smouldering within her rock-bound sides ; an 
occasional upheaval, accompanied by a few deep mur- 
murings, relieved the pressure temporarily, but the 
central fires remained smothered. The great eruption 
did not come until the middle of the century. 

Some weeks ago the Pan-American Scientific Con- 
gress concluded its second meeting in Washington. 
The one note that ran through all the papers and ad- 
dresses at this Congress was the unity of America and 
the duty of its different peoples to stand together. 



It IS interesting to trace the origin of this idea of 
unity in the support of free government throughout 
America. Such ideas grow with the years, and it is 
not possible that exactly this conception of the duty 
of the various nationalities to each other and the 
world should be held by any American in these early 
days. But the root-idea that America as a whole 
stood for the right to self-government had existed in 
the minds of the seers for at least a hundred years. 
This was the covenant preserved in the American ark, 
and to the defense of this covenant all Americans were 
forever dedicated. This was the continental thought 
of the men in '76, and this has been the inspiring prin- 
ciple in every declaration of independence published 
on this hemisphere. As far as I have been able to 
learn, the most significant early expression in Latin 
America of this idea of Pan-Americanism was in the 
plan of the Spanish revolutionist Miranda for the 
Grande Reimion Americana, a secret society organized, 
1800 to 1810, for the purpose of uniting the people of 
Central and South America in a struggle for inde- 
pendence. 

Undoubtedly Father Hidalgo, the first Mexican 
liberator, had heard of Miranda. "Bl grito de Dolo- 
res," the cry from the City of Sorrows, as the inde- 
pendence call of Hidalgo was designated, was the first 
utterance in Mexico of this Pan-American idea. This 
call was, "Long live America! Death to bad govern- 
ment!" Hidalgo did not say, "Long live Mexico! 
Death to Spain !" but "Long live America," Pan- 
America, the anticipated home of good government, 
as opposed to the Old World, the home of bad govern- 
ment. History tells us that he declared for the inde- 
pendence of Mexico as a part of self-governing Amer- 
ica. Like our Declaration, it indeed was the demand 
of an oppressed people for the right to govern them- 
selves, but it was also an expression of the ideal of 
Pan-America, destined to be the hemisphere of demo- 
cracy. 

Desperately angered by the interference of the Gov- 
ernment with his efforts to teach the people letters 
and industry — for he had been instructing them in 
reading and figures and training them to rear silk- 
worms and to make pottery — Father Hidalgo, of 
Dolores, on a September Sunday morning in 1810 
summoned his pupil horticulturists and potters, forced 
the village prison, liberated the political prisoners, 
rang the parish bell, and called the people, in the 
name of Him who came to bring all men abundant 
life, to declare themselves free. Thus was sounded, 
by a representative of the Saviour of men, the Liberty 
Bell of Mexico. The spirit of the first democrat was 
moving his people. 

The beginnings of this century-long struggle have 
been recited for the purpose of emphasizing the fact 
that these were genuine uprisings of a people seeking 
liberty and opportunity, although seeking it blindly, 
and for the purpose of explaining the occasion for 
the next great proclamation of Pan-Americanism. 
Iturbide sought to gain support for his selfish schemes 
by declaring that there was on foot a plan for the re- 
establishment of Spanish authority in Mexico which 
it was his duty to prevent. Whether any such scheme 
existed is doubtful, but the belief that it did had an 
important influence in bringing the support of the 
United States to the new Republic. In his Message of 
December, 1823, President Monroe, therefore, made 



that epoch-makmg utterance warning ^European gov- 
ernments forever to keep their hands off the American 
continent. The significance of the doctrine, under- 
stood originally to be for the United States only, we 
are just beginning to appreciate in its continental 
aspects. The events of the last two decades have 
shown us the wisdom of this forgotten doctrine, which 
now promises to be the foundation stone of the struc- 
ture of our Pan-American union. Buoyed up by this 
declaration, the independent government of Mexico 
set out upon a career which, though often in desperate 
danger from violent reactions, has gone steadily for- 
ward. 

For the generation following, the evil genius of 
Mexico was Santa Anna, who overthrew its consti- 
tutional guarantees and involved it in difficulties with 
the United States, and then left it in a condition of 
anarchy. 

Juarez, the little Indian of Oaxaca, was the most 
unselfish, wisest, and bravest of all the Mexican 
patriots. He was the real liberator of Mexico, and 
the real founder of her school system. A Constitution 
modeled after ours was proclaimed by him. A series 
of laws known as "Reform Laws" were passed, guar- 
anteeing liberty of worship, separation of Church and 
State, and equality before the law for priest, soldier, 
and common man. A vigorous mortmain law aimed 
at the immense holdings of the rehgious orders was 
enacted. 

It is impressive to note that Juarez understood per- 
fectly the distinction between the rights of the Church 
and the rights of the people. His struggle was not 
against the humble parish priests, but against the 
higher clergy and the far too numerous religious 
orders. It was against the hierarchy, the successors 
of the men who in the colonial days had been the 
counselors of the kings, viceroys, and commissions, 
and who held tenaciously to the idea that they ought 
to share in governing the people, that Juarez fought, 
and not against the Church of the people. 

Though the early leaders in the movement for inde- 
pendence were earnest partisans of popular education, 
and passed some elaborate laws for its establishment, 
they failed to carry them out. Perhaps it was impos- 
sible at the time. The Constitution of 1824, copied 
after the American Constitution, and establishing uni- 
versal democracy, was wholly unsuited to Mexican 
conditions. The American Constitution was a com- 
pact entered into voluntarily by States having had 
previous separate existences, and made up of Anglo- 
Saxon men already trained in self-government. The 
Mexican States had no such history and no such citi- 
zens. They were States only in name. The govern- 
ment had always been strongly and autocratically Cen- 
tralist, and to such a country and such a people the 
American Constitution was absolutely unadapted. 

The responsibility of self-government was conferred 
upon an illiterate and untrained mass of people, a 
large proportion of them practically slaves. When 
they were freed from Spanish control, nine-tenths 
were still under the heel of landlords. "No nation can 
exist half slave and half free," said Lincoln. With 
the masses still in serfdom Mexico made no progress 
in democracy. 

The struggles in Mexico since 1810 have been one 
long contest between the forces of autocracy and 
democracy. The various parties have borne many 



names and have had many confusing associations, but 
have remained substantially the same two hosts — the 
army, the Church, the landlords, and mine-owners on 
the one side, and the mass of the people, for the most 
part landless and mone}less, on the other. One phase 
of this was the contest between the Centralists and 
the Federalists. During this struggle the question of 
which power, the national or the State, should be re- 
sponsible for education was earnestly discussed. As, 
however, the political centre of gravity was constantly 
shifting from one to the other of these conflicting 
powers, nothing was decided and little done. 

Another difficulty was the poverty of the treasuries 
of both the States and the nation. Continuous revolu- 
tions had left the people in a wretched condition and 
almost without funds. Haciendas, churches, and 
towns were alike stripped of every form of wealth — 
the people were bled white by war. 

Such conditions gave the national government the 
excuse to turn over the financing and control of the 
schools to the States and the weak and impoverished 
States proceeded immediately to pass the business on 
to the municipios, which, like our New England towns, 
covered large country districts. Nothing was accom- 
plished by this shifting of responsibility. If the nation 
was bankrupt, the States were also exhausted ; and, 
if the States had no money, the towns from which they 
derived their revenues were, of course, equally impov- 
erished. So that, even after the authority was given 
them to establish schools, the towns were unable to 
support the stupendous undertaking. 

In face, however, of these tremendous difficulties, 
some beginnings were made, which show how deeply 
the people were concerned. It is a remarkable fact 
that in the law promulgated by the State of Nuevo 
Leon (1825) the principle of compulsory attendance 
on schools was laid down. Professor Martinez, in his 
"Review of Education in Nuevo Leon," Mexico 
(1894), quotes this Constitution as commanding the 
city government "to promote the proper education of 
the young and establish endowed schools of primary 
grade, to see to the due conservation and right gov- 
ernment of those already in existence, respecting al- 
ways the rights of individuals and corporations." The 
same Constitution directs that in all villages primary 
schools should be established, in which should be 
taught "reading, writing, and the principles of num- 
bers, the catechism of the Christian doctrine, and a 
summary explanation of the duties of citizenship." 
It is only within the last few years that we have in- 
troduced instruction in civics in our schools. 

Another great difficulty faced these early school 
enthusiasts, and this was the lack of teachers. To 
solve this problem the Mexicans seized upon the Lan- 
castrian system of teaching the elementary branches, 
which was popular at the time in England and in 
America. It seemed to suit their conditions exactly, 
and, as a matter of fact, it did fit in with their im- 
practicable schemes. It was the old monitorial system 
carried to the extreme. It proved a failure in Mexico, 
as it did everywhere, though it did some good by call- 
ing attention to the duty' of educating all the people. 

Among the things for which the administration of 
President Diaz should receive credit were the suppres- 
sion of religious persecution and anti-foreign demon- 
strations ; the suppression of brigandage, always a 
characteristic of Mexico; the development of the natu- 



ral resources of the country, especially by the policy 
of encouraging investments by Americans and other 
foreign capitalists ; the consolidation and improvement 
of the railways ; the partial abolition of peonage ; the 
standardization of the currency; the encouragement of 
education ; and the maintenance of liberty and equality 
before the law. 

Though at the beginning a sincere representative of 
the masses of the people, Diaz, as his administration 
went on, became more and more involved with the 
upper classes. Fie has even been accused of being 
unfriendly to public education. He certainly djd not 
wish to make education a national matter, and opposed 
a proposition to establish a centralized system of 
schools. In this he was right. The initiative in edu- 
cational matters, in elementary education especially, 
should be left to the local authorities. 

In spite of opposition from his own people, who 
thought he was altogether too partial to foreign in- 
vestors, Diaz pushed the policy of subsidies for rail- 
way lines, exemption of import duties on factory ma- 
chinery, and relief from taxation during specified 
periods for productive industries. The result was 
great improvement in the economic conditions of the 
laboring classes, especially in the mining districts. 
But the wants of the people began to grow with their 
wages, and they began to question and to investigate. 
For centuries they had expected nothing and were 
resigned to a miserable lot, but now their very pros- 
perity made them restless. They commenced to in- 
quire why it was that a few men had more land than 
they needed, while others had none, and why taxation 
was so much heavier on the poor man than on the rich. 

The Diaz Government found itself unable to solve 
the problem of taxation and land tenure. Those efforts 
proved a failure which sought to put a rate upon the 
immense holdings of land that would make them un- 
profitable, and thus open them up for settlement by 
the small farmers. The mere effort to do this caused 
great dissatisfaction among the land barons, and its 
failure bitter disappointment to the people. Such were 
the elements that led up to the Madero revolution of 
1911. 

The unfortunate Madero's part in this struggle is 
well known. More truly than any one since Hidalgo 
and Juarez, he represented the real people of Mexico. 
While he made the land question the chief one in his 
platform — much to his sorrow later, for he was totally 
unable to do anything to solve the agrarian problem — 
he also represented the aspirations of Mexicans for 
education and equality. Like Hidalgo, he was a 
dreamer. We admired his idealism and felt deep pity 
for his weakness. 

Enough has been recalled to show that this series of 
JNIexican revolutions has been one long struggle for 
liberty, for opportunity, especially on the land, and 
for the right of self-government. It was a succession 
of forward movements followed by reactions, but, 
as is the rule in human affairs, a little progress was 
registered by each effort. 

Summarizing now the educational situation in Mex- 
ico at the present time, we may set down the following 
propositions : 

1. The present leaders of the people are thoroughly 
committed to the cause of public education. The Con- 
stitutionalist party and its leader are pledged to the 
development of the schools. 



2. It is agreed that the initiative shall be left to the 
local committees, the municipios, and the States, per- 
haps, with the supervision and direction from the na- 
tional Government, but with no centralized control. 

3. The people are firmly determined that these 
schools shall be, as they say, "free, lay (secular), and 
compulsory." The leaders are intensely opposed to 
Church control of the schools. 

4. In organization the schools follow the French 
plan rather than the American, the primary grades 
being comprised within six years, four called "ele- 
mentary" and two called "superior." Since they were 
left to the initiative of the local authorities, the schools 
do not cover the field and vary much in excellence. 
Some cities have fairly good schools, but the majority 
of the country schools are poor. The instruction is 
generally limited to the three R.'s, and is very indif- 
ferently given by poorly trained teachers from the 
lower orders of society. It is safe to say that three- 
fourths of the people of Mexico are still illiterate. 

5. Mexico has nothing that corresponds to our high 
school. The institutos resemble the French lycees 
rather than our American high schools. They may be 
roughly described as a combination of grammar 
school, high school, and the first two years of college, 
with a few professional studies included. Opposition 
to the Church has led the State authorities to oppose 
the introduction of Latin and to substitute in its place 
modern languages and elementary science, with the 
result that the courses are very superficial. In addi- 
tion to the institutos are what are called "preparatory 
schools," hardly distinguishable from the lower grades 
of the institutos which give instruction iri elementary 
and secondary branches. 

6. Normal schools have been established in most of 
the States, and are attended for the most part by poor 
boys and girls. It is unfortunate that, owing to the 
prevalent aristocratic feeling, the sons and daughters 
of the well-to-do do not go into the teaching profes- 
sion, with the result that it is looked down upon. One 
reason for this is that the pay is small and the sons 
of the rich expect to enter more lucrative callings, but 
another reason is that the Church frowns upon the 
secular normal school as the foundation of the whole 
irreligious public school system, which is to her ana- 
thema. This pressure on the conscience of the re- 
ligious, combined with social ostracism, results ulti- 
mately in limiting the attendance to the poorest classes 
of youth, who, with nothing to lose, brave all and go 
to the State normal schools. 

7. The universities in Mexico owe their origin en- 
tirely to the Church. The one of chief importance was 
the University of the City of Mexico, established in 
1551. Opened in 1553, it continued throughout the 
colonial period and barely survived the revolution of 
1810-21. From the beginning it was occupied pri- 
marily with thedlogy and jurisprudence, its faculty of 
letters being secondary. As the Church ceased to 
dominate the government theology was dropped, and 
only law and medicine remained. When later these 
schools controlled the professional licenses, they be- 
came the football of politics. In this way the Univer- 
sity fell into disrepute. Once or twice it was sup- 
pressed, and finally it was dissolved into its constituent 
parts, separate schools of medicine and law. One of 
the last acts of the Diaz Administration was an at- 
tempt to revive the University of Mexico City, which, 



however, failed during the subsequent confusion. 

What can we say in conclusion? There must be a 
way for the Mexican people out of their terrible situa- 
tion. What is their duty, and what is our duty as their 
neighbor? It would be foolish indeed to propose, 
at this time especially, a solution of the problem of 
Mexico, but it is not foolish to try to learn what their 
history teaches with regard to their needs and their 
aspirations. 

The Mexicans must have, not only land, but an edu- 
cation. Though he has been struggling in his blind 
way for liberty for a hundred years, for the want of 
intelligence and of character he has failed to secure his 
freedom. A thorough system of schools which shall 
provide universal education is, without question, the 
greatest need of Mexico. 

Does the proposal of universal education for Mexico 
seem absurd? Why is it more absurd than the pro- 
posal to educate the Cuban, the Porto Rican, and the 
Filipino? It should not be more hopeless than the 
education of the Indian or the Negro. No doubt it 
will require a long time even to establish the necessary 
schools. It will be the work of generations to qualify 
the thirteen million ignorant people for intelligent citi- 
zenship, but education ofl:ers the only method of mak- 
ing men fit to be free. 

Believing that the Mexico of the future must be 
built by its people, and that they have little to contri- 
bute to its structure but their native intellectual and 
spiritual abilities, I have sought to get a just estimate 
of them from those who know them best. A native 
Mexican who was educated in Massachusetts and who 
has taught in the United States as well as his own 
country, where he was head of a large college and 
superintendent of public schools of a State, assures me 
that the Mexican peon is the equal intellectually of the 
Italian, the Hungarian, or any of the other immigrants 
among us, and fully as capable of self-government. A 
Protestant missionary teacher, who spent thirty years 
in Mexico at the head of schools, and is now connected 
with one of our universities, testifies that the Mexican 
peon has all the qualities to make a citizen of a repub- 
lic if he were only educated and given a place on the 
land. The superintendent of one of the large petro- 
leum companies of Mexico, who has used the peon men 
for ten years, tells me that they are as teachable, in- 
dustrious, faithful, and loyal mechanics and laborers 
as any men he has ever employed. The president of 
the largest Mexican railway system, who has em- 
ployed these people for twenty years — as track laborers, 
shop mechanics, locomotive-drivers, and conductors, 
as well as depot agents and clerks — is warm in his 
praise of the common Mexican, who, he declares, 
needs only an education and a chance. Many other 
witnesses might be cited to the same efJect. In the 
course of a wide inquiry into the character of these 
people, the only pessimists found were among business 
and professional men in Texas, New Mexico, and Cali- 
fornia, who have come in contact with the worst types 
of Mexicans — the poor laborer seeking work, the bor- 
der trader, usually a smuggler, or the cattle thief and 
bandit. Those who know him best and in his own 
country believe the common Mexican has in him the 
making of a man and a citizen. 

In addition to elementary education and training for 
citizenship, Mexicans, of all men, need industrial and 
agricultural education. Although Father Hidalgo 



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started his revolution in protest against interference 
with his industrial schools for the people, schools of 
this type have made little progress. They are the great 
need. Agriculture in Mexico and the mechanic arts 
are very primitive. The rich man objects to manual 
labor as beneath his dignity. Technical and industrial 
schools are needed to overcome this sentiment. Prac- 
tically nothing has been done for agricultural educa- 
tion. In view of the richness of the soil and the other 
resources and the need of men to develop them, indus- 
trial and agricultural education would seem to be one 
of the most important tasks before the Mexican people. 

Mexico has no college or university of the modern 
type. She needs intelligent leaders, but she has no 
institution to train them. One of the best possible 
things, therefore, that could be done in Mexico, while 
helping her to start her elementary, agricultural, and 
industrial schools, would be to give her an independent 
modern college of the type of Robert College, of Con- 
stantinople. The advantages that would accrue to 
Mexico from a college of that type are too evident to 
need argument. Its influence on education, on politics, 
on industry, and on morals would be all the greater 
because of its independence. Only such an institution 
can train Mexicans in a way to make them into the 
wise, unselfish, and independent leaders the people 
need. 

We have pledged ourselves to stand with the other 
nations of the Western Hemisphere in making democ- 
racy a workable principle of government. Close to our 



doors we have fifteen millions of people who, through 
ignorance and the habits that come of ignorance, have 
failed to differentiate liberty from license and have 
subordinated federalism to factionalism. Mexico can- 
not have a free and ordered government so long as the 
great masses of its people are illiterate. A democracy 
must be based on an organized public opinion, and 
such a public opinion can be made possible only 
through a system of education which, while it trains in 
the industrial arts, also disciplines the character and 
develops leaders of scope and vision. The best aid to 
a man is to help him help himself. Our best aid to 
Mexico would be to help that nation train itself. 

In the wretched situation in which we find Mexico 
at tlie present time there is one encouraging element. 
In their dark night there is one bright star. It is the 
star which through the long and weary night of the 
last hundred years has ever beckoned them forward. 
This star is their desire for liberty and for education. 
In spite of their ignorance, stupidity, and brutality, this 
is the one thing for which we must admire the com- 
mon people of Mexico. Through a century of strug- 
gle they have nurtured this desire for education, and 
have been true to this ideal of self-government. How- 
ever miserable their present plight, and however out- 
rageous their recent conduct, we must believe that, 
holding stronger than ever to this desire and this ideal, 
the people of Mexico are to-day nearer to the realiza- 
tion of their aspirations than ever before. 



5^^ 



